Madonna of Strakonice

The monumental statue of the Madonna of Strakonice ranks among the most outstanding of all the works contained in the medieval collection of the National Gallery in Prague. By its monumentality and the balanced composition it refers to the classic French cathedral sculpting as we know it from the Western portals of the cathedral in Reims, France. Nevertheless, the striking rigidity of gestures and the block-like execution of the sculpture plead for the relatively late middle European reduction of the French models.